A Smoke Will Fill the Air
by The Talentless Hack
Summary: Part 2 of 3. “I can change, I can change, I can change, But who you want me to be? I’m the same, I’m the same, I’m the same, Who do you want me to be?”


**A/N:** Thanks again go to Christie and Luis; if not for them, _And I Dream About Somewhere_ would probably have remained unfinished indefinitely, and _this_ would never have existed.

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Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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_A Smoke Will Fill the Air_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

She was still there a week later.

He got the feeling she didn't have anywhere else to go.

Her bruises were fading; they were that sickly yellow color that told people that in a few days, the discolorations would be a faint memory. She was pretty when she wasn't beat up, he decided. Wouldn't win any beauty contests, but then, neither would he, so he wasn't anyone to judge. Still, she looked better without the bruises. She'd perked up a little too. Not enough to annoy him, but enough for him to remember that there was someone else in his place, which was a strange, new sensation.

The thing that really surprised him, though, was that he didn't mind that she was in his space. She was careful to be unobtrusive, like she was afraid he'd toss her out on her ass if she was presumptuous enough to muscle her way in where she wasn't wanted. As a result, he usually forgot she was around, until he saw her or heard her or smelled her.

That was another weird thing: she was using his soap—he knew she was, because it was getting too small too fast—but she didn't smell like him. She was still sleeping in his bed, and he was still sleeping in it with her—she was still crazy if she thought he was giving up his bed to her—but she smelled like Tokio, not Hajime, and he didn't understand how that was possible.

He'd found out who she was after she'd been there two days with no sign that she intended to leave any time soon. She gave him only what he asked for, and he only asked for the pertinent facts—her name and her age. Takagi Tokio. 26 years old. It was enough, at the time, that his surprise roommate both had a name and was of legal age.

It made him feel better about sleeping in the same bed with her, even if the only part of him that touched her was his back.

But days went by, and he found himself wondering about a few things. Things like: Why was she still there? Things like: Why had she been with "Hideyoshi"? Things like: Where were her folks?

He didn't think she'd still be there if she had a place to go. The idea that his kindness was all she had made him hesitant to get rid of her.

So she went from being his good karma deed of the day to being his good karma deed of the week, and it was looking like she was going to be his good karma deed of the month, the way things were going.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

She kept waiting for him to show her the door.

She couldn't understand why he didn't.

He was silent most of the time, and she figured it was because he'd lived by himself for so long—he acted like someone who hadn't shared space with another person for years. She saw the surprise on his face when he walked into a room and saw her, and it amused her a little. But it made her tense up, too; she knew he forgot that she was there most of the time, and every time that he remembered her, she expected him to toss her out.

But instead of tossing her out, he just went about his business, like a dog who had paused, unable to remember where he was going, and then ambled on his way again, either suddenly remembering his destination or coming up with a new one.

And while she was relieved he didn't feel the need to get rid of her just yet, she wondered why he hadn't.

He kept odd hours, too; he slept all morning, usually, but he was up by eleven thirty. Sometimes he got dressed in a suit and left, calling his usual parting words—"Don't steal anything"—over his shoulder before the door closed. Other times he went about the little flat, maybe fixing something that was broken or furtively combing through the papers he kept in a locked metal box under the bed. But he was always gone all night. She never knew when he came in, just that it was late and while she was sleeping; every morning, she'd awaken to sunlight in her face and a warm back pressed against her right arm.

When he was gone, she usually occupied herself with trying to tidy up his place, unable to think of any other way to pay back whatever odd kindness had prompted him to not only let her into his flat in the first place, but let her stay.

She hadn't actually intended to stay.

But this was the first place in a long time where she felt, if not wanted, then at least welcome.

And it was such a nice feeling she really couldn't bring herself to leave.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

One week stretched into two, and he was almost used to walking into his kitchen and seeing her timidly peering into his fridge to survey its myriad takeout boxes.

He'd been bringing more food back, since she was around. It wasn't any real trouble, although it had gotten him some shit from the other guys.

"Eating for two, Saitou-kun?" Shinpachi had asked with a smirk, cigarette bouncing up and down as he spoke.

"Who's the lucky girl?" Souji had asked, elbowing him in the ribs.

He'd ignored them…after flipping them both off.

Still. It wasn't enough of a hassle to make him quit it. As far as he knew, she didn't leave the flat, and he wasn't great about buying groceries. She had to eat.

Sometimes he wondered if he was only encouraging her to stay longer.

But she wasn't really bothering him.

It hardly seemed like there was someone else living there with him, even though the soap dwindled more quickly and less of his clothing was in the drawers. She did laundry, though, so he didn't get down to his last shirt and pair of trousers and underwear before he decided, well, _maybe_ he should do his laundry now. And she cleaned—he noticed there seemed to be less dust in the place these days.

One day, she tiptoed to the bedroom doorway while he was going through the papers in his lockbox. When he glanced over at her, he found her meekly holding onto the jamb, solemn and tense. His gaze went back to what he was doing.

"Yeah?"

"I…don't you get tired of eating takeout?" she asked, voice hesitant.

"I don't really think about it."

"Oh."

She'd left as quietly as she'd come, and hadn't mentioned it again.

Before he left that night, he placed enough yen to buy a week's worth of food under a glass in the kitchen, thinking he was definitely encouraging her.

Couldn't find the heart to give a damn, though.

He'd forgotten all about it by the time he woke up the next day. She was already up and about, but since he was used to her by now, she was little more than pleasant background noise. He only noticed that she was gone when it suddenly occurred to him that the air in the place was too still, and when he went looking for her and found her gone, an odd feeling of disappointment had risen in him.

She could have at least said good-bye.

He had business to attend to, though, so he'd suited up and left, his mind still lingering on the way the flat no longer seemed…well, welcoming, he supposed at long last. He'd never liked the place, taking it only because it was cheap and convenient, but when he'd had her around, it hadn't seemed so horrible.

The stillness she'd left behind was unsettling.

When he came back at 4 am, he found her huddled in the hallway outside the flat, head pillowed on her arms. Surprised, he'd slowly walked toward her, wondering what it meant and how long she'd been there. He stopped short when she peeked up at him and he saw an ugly bruise, purple and black with blue underneath, marring the side of her face.

Suddenly, the mess of food on the stairwell he'd been annoyed at having to sidestep—right by the fifth floor, in fact—made painful sense.

"It was locked," she said dully.

He didn't reply; he just walked to the door, unlocked it and stepped in, then held it open for her. She got up slowly, moving like she hurt everywhere, and shuffled in.

"Go clean up," he said.

She nodded and headed for the bathroom. He stared at the wall across from him, still holding the door open, and waited until he heard water rumble in the pipes before he left.

His appointment with "Hideyoshi" was overdue.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Three weeks later and he still hadn't thrown her out, but she didn't really care for his reasons anymore.

It was enough that he didn't mind having her around.

Beggars couldn't be choosers, after all.

She noticed he didn't leave now unless he was sure she was going to be staying put. She tried to get up early to buy groceries at the market down the street so she didn't interrupt his routine too much. He was always awake when she came back, sitting on the side of the bed, watching the doorway, smoking and bleary-eyed. She always apologized; he never replied, just passed her his cigarette if he wasn't done with it or reached back and rubbed it out in the ashtray on the sill if he was before he laid down and went back to sleep.

One morning she woke up and found some clothes in her size sitting on the couch. When she asked him about them later, once he'd woken up, he shrugged:

"You got one pair of jeans and a shirt you can wear out and not look like you're playing dress up."

Nothing else had been said on the matter.

She started really wondering a few things about him after that. Things like: Why did he wear a suit when he left at night? Things like: What did he do when he wasn't there? Things like: Where did the food and money and her clothes come from?

She asked eventually, when the wondering got to be too much.

"What do you do?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow, glancing up at her before going back to screwing around with the leaky kitchen faucet.

"What do _you_ do?" he asked right back, his cigarette bouncing, the smoke that had been lazily ambling upwards interrupted.

"I asked first," she said.

He didn't say anything, so she decided to tease him—she'd discovered a few days back that he didn't appear to have a sense of humor (sarcasm was _not_ an appropriate substitute), and she'd been trying to nudge one out of him.

So far, no dice.

As an added bonus, teasing on her part didn't seem to annoy him.

"There're only so many night occupations that you'd need to dress up for," she said, tapping her chin in mock thoughtfulness.

The subtle way he tensed didn't escape her notice and she wondered at it but didn't say anything.

He wouldn't have told her if she'd asked, anyway.

"Hmmm…I know!" she said finally. "You work in a host club, right?"

"No," he said, not even bothering to look up; he'd relaxed a little once she'd spoken.

She pursed her lips and silently lamented the negative answer—it had been her most plausible guess.

"I see," she said, cocking her head. "Hmmm…what could you be? …Ah: you're a gigolo, right?"

His hand slipped and his elbows almost ended up in the sink; the cigarette got knocked out of his mouth and bounced around the sink bowl, though he saved it before it rolled into the drain.

"A _what_?" he asked finally, staring at her in horror.

She pressed her lips together to keep from laughing, but no power on Earth could keep her from smiling—it was the first time she'd seen him lose his cool, detached façade in almost a month.

And he did horror very well, incidentally.

"A gigolo," she said, once she was sure she wouldn't laugh. He flinched and she ducked her head and laughed quietly into her lap.

"No?" she asked finally, openly grinning.

"_No_," he said, tone emphatic, before he returned to the faucet.

"All right…how about a male prostitute?"

He whacked his elbow this time and swore; the cigarette dropped straight into the drain before he could even think about catching it, and he flipped the faucet on and doused it with water, and probably sent it merrily on its way down the pipe to wherever it was water went.

He sent her a very not-happy look, and some of her amusement retreated.

"No," he said. "I'm not. And for the record, they're the same thing."

"Not necessarily," she said quickly—he'd been quite tolerant of her, and while she knew that would end eventually—it always did—she didn't want it to end in quite this manner, on quite this subject. "There's a little bit of a difference. Gigolo's usually got all female clients. He usually goes out with them, too. But a male prostitute can have male or female clients, and it's usually just sex."

He stared at her, and she blushed and dropped her gaze to her lap.

"And how is it that you know about gigolos and prostitutes?" he asked finally, voice calm with a hint of curiosity.

She wasn't fooled—she knew that tone, even if this was the first time she was hearing it from him.

"You pick it up in this neighborhood, if you're here long enough," she said, not looking up.

He didn't reply, and after a moment he went back to the faucet. She peeked up at him through her bangs; his expression was thoughtful with a side of distaste, and she wondered what he was thinking.

"Are you yakuza?" she asked after a moment, fully expecting him to roll his eyes and tell her to quit it.

Instead, he froze, body stiff, and dread filled her.

It was deadly quiet in the flat—too quiet. The silence was loud in her ears.

"Why aren't you saying no?" she asked finally, watching him warily.

His gaze flickered to her then back to the faucet; otherwise, he didn't move.

"Why are you asking?" he asked at long last.

"You are yakuza…aren't you?" she asked.

His fingers twitched ever so slightly, but he didn't answer. She forged on ahead, pretending his silence didn't make her sick:

"What do you do?"

Nothing, still.

"Hajime-san?"

"Collector," he said, tone short. He went back to what he'd been doing, avoiding looking in her direction, as if speaking had loosened joints that had been frozen still by some strange spell.

"What do you collect?" she asked.

"Past due payments," he said, and it was clear he didn't want to talk about it anymore.

So she slipped off the counter and tiptoed past him and went to the bedroom.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

He'd expected her to bolt as soon as she found out what he did.

Instead, she stuck around, and that was when he knew, once and for all, that he was all she had.

And why that pleased him as much as it pained him, he had no idea.

He'd given her a _very_ sanitized version of what he did, but that was all she needed to know, as far as he was concerned. And even telling her that much had upset him. He didn't like the thought that she knew what he did. No one understood yakuza and what that life meant like other yakuza; everyone else looked down on you like the worst kind of trash, and whether or not you were was irrelevant. And she wasn't especially important or anything, but he liked imagining that she held him in high regard.

Higher than that asshole that used to beat on her, anyway.

Two nights later, he came home with cut knuckles and bruised sides—collection hadn't come easy. He peeled off his jacket and whipped off his tie and flopped onto the bed, back to her as usual, and dropped off.

He woke up hours later to the sound of rain on the window and a warm body curled against his back.

He stared ahead, not sure what to do—this was new. Always before, she'd kept to her side, such as it was, and had refrained from encroaching on his and he'd returned the favor.

In the end, he stayed where he was, deciding to wait for her to get up.

He ended up falling asleep again, lulled by the uneven beat of the rain. When he woke up again, it was afternoon, and he was more tired than he'd ever been in his life. He didn't feel her against his back anymore, but he knew she was still there, behind him, so he rolled onto his back and looked over, and found her sitting up, elbows propped on the sill, watching the rain come down, the blanket draped over her head like a cloak.

He grinned when he saw her.

"You were tired," she said, not looking at him, and he started, wondering how she'd known he was awake.

Then he noticed her reflection watching him, and he coughed and looked up at the ceiling.

"Hn," he grunted, noncommittal.

"Do yakuza do business on rainy days?" she asked, and he tensed.

"Why?" he asked, wary.

"I was wondering," she said. "I never knew a yakuza before. Well, one I knew for sure was yakuza, anyway."

"If there's business needs to be done, yeah," he said finally.

"Hmmm." The bed shifted, and she flopped down next to him on her back.

It was cramped on the mattress like this, but he didn't move, didn't dare.

"You shouldn't work on rainy days," she said after a long pause.

"Oh?" he asked, risking a glance at her.

She looked over at him.

"Yeah," she said.

"So what should you do?"

"Be lazy," she said with a faint smile. "You never feel like doing anything anyway, so you might as well not bother."

"Interesting logic," he said dryly, going back to looking at the ceiling.

"You should probably take a break," she said thoughtfully.

"Why?"

"Your hands are cut up," she said, and he was surprised at how bland her voice was, like she was telling him about a new pair of shoes she'd bought. "Probably, you should let them recover."

And it was a flimsy excuse, but he'd never not worked a day since he'd joined the gumi.

So he got up long enough to go to the lobby and use the old pay phone to call up Shinpachi and tell him to handle things tonight before he went back up and to bed.

She stayed with him.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

She'd been surprised at how little it had mattered, in the end, where the food and the money and the clothes came from and what he did when he wasn't there and where he went at night.

Because he hadn't really changed in the end; he was still the same, she just knew a little more about him now. He didn't treat her any different, although for a little bit, she'd noticed he wasn't quite comfortable around her.

Then she got him to spend the day listening to the rain come down, and it was like she'd never found out what he did.

She still didn't entirely like it, but it wasn't her place to say that, so she kept it to herself. And for the most part, she was able to forget about it.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Things were getting hairy well into Month Two.

He almost dreaded going to sleep now; as soon as he dropped onto the mattress, she rolled over to curl up against his back, and he didn't know what that meant. He didn't think she was cold, because the sheets on the bed were plenty thick. He didn't have any other ideas, though. Well, he didn't have any others that weren't _stupid_.

Ideas like: maybe it was her way of saying she missed him. Ideas like: maybe it was her way of saying she liked him. Ideas like: maybe it was her way of saying she wished he were there nights.

She'd gotten him to be lazy three more times. The last time, he'd woken up once to find he'd curled around her in his sleep, and she had buried her nose against his collarbone.

It had been very pleasant.

It had been very worrying.

He knew he was in trouble when he let her talk him into staying in bed past eleven thirty one day when there wasn't even a flimsy pretext for it, and let her burrow into his side and sleep while he smoked and stared up at the ceiling and wondered what the fuck he was doing, and when his good karma deed had turned into Something Else.

But he didn't have the heart to put a brutal end to this, the way he knew he should.

If there was anything he'd figured out, it was that he was soft on her, and it didn't have anything to do with the fact that he felt bad for her because "Hideyoshi" used to smack her around.

It had a lot to do, however, with the fact that his place didn't seem so awful and empty and lifeless anymore.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

She was no longer counting the days or waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She hadn't been for a while now.

She made that realization the same day she caught herself calling his flat "home," though thankfully she hadn't said it out loud—she didn't know what he'd say if he heard her.

But it was the truth—his tiny little flat felt like some place she could stay, some place where she was welcome, maybe even wanted. She had clothes in his drawers, and groceries in his kitchen, and she could explore as much as she wanted. She could clean up the rooms and he wouldn't say anything, unless it was to ask if she'd cleaned, and then say it looked better. And he brought back fewer takeout boxes, and ate her leftovers more often than not these days.

And he didn't say a lot, but she got the feeling that he liked having her there.

It didn't have anything to do with the fact that he hadn't thrown her out yet.

It had everything to do with the fact that he hadn't said "Don't steal anything" for over a month now.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Three months and eight days after he'd taken her in, he did a Very Stupid Thing.

He kissed her.

And because he was a spectacular idiot, he didn't start out with something small, like her cheek or forehead or the top of her head, he fucking _kissed_ her.

And it was the most awkward thing in the world, because he didn't quite time it right—_because he wasn't thinking_—and he didn't quite get her lips. And she froze for a second and he finally realized what he was doing and tried to back off, but she grabbed the sides of his face as he was moving away and he went stupid again.

When sanity returned, he didn't look up at her; he rubbed his heels over his eyes and called himself every kind of fool and then some.

"That shouldn't happen again." he said.

"Shouldn't?" she asked, and he tensed and cursed himself.

Say won't, say won't, he thought desperately.

"Shouldn't," he said instead.

And then he knew he was sabotaging himself.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Shouldn't wasn't the same thing as won't, and she knew that.

Which was why she wasn't surprised when it happened again later that week, or when it continued to happen.

He wasn't the worst guy she could have fallen in with. In a lot of ways, he was better. He didn't treat her bad at all, and he definitely wanted her there. He looked out for her, and appreciated her making food or cleaning up or doing the laundry, in his own way.

It wasn't anything so idealistic as love. But it was nice, all the same.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Four months and twelve days after he'd taken her in he did another Very Stupid Thing.

He gave up all pretense of sanity.

And he really wanted to blame it on the rain or her or the fact that he hadn't gotten laid in _eons_, but in the end he knew it was his fault.

Because he shouldn't have been so soft on her.

Because he shouldn't have been so slow on the uptake.

Because he shouldn't have been so fucking lonely.

And none of that meant shit all now, because the damage was done and there was no going back to the way things were.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Three days later, she was reminded that in some ways, he was also the worst possible guy she could have fallen in with.

She should have known she couldn't catch a break.

She woke up to the sounds of his voice and another man's. The bedroom door was shut, which it never was. When she looked at the clock, she frowned—it was nine. He was never up at nine.

So she got out of bed and pulled on the robe he'd bought her and tiptoed out to see what was wrong.

There was a man with messy hair sitting on the couch, smoking. As for him, he was pacing, hands jammed in his slacks. She knew immediately that he hadn't slept. She suspected that he hadn't gotten in until recently.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, unsure, and shrank back a little when both men turned to look at her.

Her eyes widened when she saw the ugly bruise on his left cheek.

"No," he said, obviously irritated.

"Your face—" she said.

"Is fine," he said, cutting her off with a kind of brutality that shocked her—he hadn't been short with her in the entire time she'd been with him.

It was a very rude and unpleasant introduction.

She knew when to retreat, so she did, tiptoeing back to the room to huddle in the sheets that still smelled like them. She hadn't counted on him coming after her, and she definitely hadn't thought he'd pick a fight.

But he did.

And she knew it wasn't her fault, and she knew he knew that too, but he was agitated in a way she'd never seen before from him and apparently she was the only handy target.

Again.

It hurt, though, this time. Much worse than any of the others. Here, she'd felt wanted. That feeling fled when he sharply, curtly said,

"Get lost."

He left the room with a slam, and she sat on the bed and bleakly looked at the blankets before she dragged herself up and carefully made the bed, then took off the robe and the nightshirt under it and folded them neatly before laying them on the bed. She dug through the drawers for the clothes she'd come with, put them on, then quietly left the room.

The other man was still there, but she didn't say anything as she passed him, only walked to the entry, slid on her shoes, opened the door and left, careful to shut it behind her silently.

She didn't have anywhere else to go, but it had always been her belief that it was better to have no place at all than stay some place where you weren't wanted.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Regret bit into him sharply once he'd holed himself up in the kitchen.

He'd never snapped at her before, and the hurt, blindsided look on her face when he had…it shamed him. He'd left the room, angry with himself for taking his own failures out on her.

After all, it wasn't her fault that last night's "collection" had gone so poorly it had necessitated a fist fight, or that the fist fight had led to his being arrested, or that Shinpachi had had to come to the precinct to bail him out, or that he'd been chewed out by the gumi boss once Shinpachi had hauled him to Headquarters.

He absently fixed up an ice pack and set it against his cheek, more focused on trying to find the proper words to smooth hurt feelings over. Words weren't his strong point, but he'd figure out something, and then things could return to the way they'd been.

He gave up after five minutes and decided he'd just stumble through it and hope she could put it together—she was good at that.

Plan of action decided, he left the kitchen and began for the bedroom, only to be stopped by Shinpachi:

"Your friend left."

His shoulders tensed, but he didn't turn and look at his associate. Dread curled in him, and he approached the room slowly, even though he already knew, from the stillness in the air, that she was gone.

When he reached the doorway he looked in and felt sick when he saw the neatly folded robe and nightshirt on the equally neatly made bed. He looked around for a long moment, then slowly went to the drawers and opened all the ones that held her things, the things he'd bought for her, and found everything there.

The sight wasn't as comforting as it should have been, not when he remembered the wounded gray eyes that had silently asked what she'd done.

"Shit," he said under his breath, shoving the drawers closed.

He didn't know where she'd go. He didn't think she had any family, but she hadn't said so and truthfully, after a while, he hadn't cared. He didn't think she had any friends she could stay with either—she would have gone to stay with them a long time ago if that was the case.

"Going after her?" Shinpachi asked from the doorway, watching him oddly, expression a cross between confusion and expectance.

He slowly shook his head, eyes trained on the bureau.

"She hasn't been gone that long—"

Again he slowly shook his head, absently rubbing the top of the bureau.

Shinpachi left a few minutes later, but he stood there in front of the bureau for a long time, wondering what to do. He wanted to go look for her—badly—but there was a chance she might come back on her own, and she didn't have a key; if he left, he'd have to lock the door, and if she couldn't get in, she might think he didn't want her there.

It was hard to predict what she'd do. She wasn't like him—she was changeable, slippery. When he thought she was going to do one thing, she turned around and did another.

It would be just like her to come back the second he was gone.

He swallowed, then went to the bed and sat down on the side. He picked up the pack on the bedside table that he'd left for her, pulled out a cigarette and lit it, then leaned his forearms on his knees and clasped his hands together loosely and watched the doorway.

He decided he would wait, so that he'd be there when she came back.


End file.
